^uHiciitifliis 



iistDrial §>uuh of fcintsiiIljHiua, 



UN THE 



O a u L 



rtctHt use of history. 



IlIBMRY OF CONGRESS. i 

I "- i 

J [SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT.] J 



I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.^ 



THE 



RIGHT USE OF HISTORY 



AN ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE DELIVERED BEFORE 
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



BY 



X^o- 



S'^ WILLIAM PARKER FOULKE 

OF PHILADELPHIA 



PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY 

18 56 



T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS, PRINTEKS, 
NO. 1 LODGE ALLEY. 



A/ 



i 
i 



The Historical Society of Tennsylvania suspended during a few 
years the priutiog of the anniversary addresses delivered before it. The 
publication of these having been resumed, and such as preceded the 
anniversary of 1850 having been sent to the press, the Discourse for 
that year, delivered on the 25th day of November, in the Hall of the 
University of Pennsylvania, is now printed by order of the Society. 
This explanation is made to account for the delay of publication. 



DISCOURSE. 



Mr. President, 

AND 

Gentlemen of the Historical Society. 

My preparation for the honorable office which you. 
have assigned to me, has been embarrassed by the 
consideration of what is due to yourselves, and to our 
common object. Other anniversaries have brought to 
you the services of gentlemen not only learned in va- 
rious departments of history, but specially and fully 
prepared to exhibit to you a development of import- 
ant topics suited to the commemoration of our origin 
as a society, and to the ceremonious announcement of 
our designs. While they renewed in our behalf, the 
literary pledges to which we had been committed, they 
furnished, in their discourses, evidence at once of the 
sincerity and the fruitfulness of those pledges, b}^ valu- 
able contributions to the stock of historical knowledge. 
It is with no such earnest of future productiveness that 



you are to be at this time addressed ; and if the general 
observations to be submitted to you shall seem less appro- 
priate than the presentation of new facts, or than the 
deduction of new conclusions from facts already collected, 
your speaker can crave indulgence upon the ground that 
a controlling force of circumstances, and a lack of needful 
time, and not the want of inclination or of industry, have 
compelled him to forego the advantages of special research 
for this occasion. 

It may be, however, that this deficiencj^ of new mate- 
rial, at first view discouraging, will be found, upon further 
consideration, to have left open the way to reflections not 
unimportant to us as an association whose object is the 
cultivation of history. Perhaps in the life of such a com- 
munity, as in the life of each member of it, there are sea- 
sons at which it is profitable to consider anew the motives 
and the plan of action; to estimate what we have accom- 
plished, and in what we have failed; and to correct those 
excesses to which w^e are most prone by reason of our pecu- 
liar devotion to one field of activity. To our department 
belongs more than merely to gather, with the minute 
diligence of the typical antiquary, relics of former time; 
to trace partially defaced inscriptions; to perpetuate 
images of decaying edifices, or the details of obsolete 



wardrobes. Whatever the associations which invest 
these with a value, or bind them to us by ties of personal 
interest, they are comparatively trivial incidents to our 
pursuits. Even the events which are most widely known, 
and the men who shine most conspicuously among the 
great actors of the past, have a limited historical value ; 
the extent of which is determined by their contributions 
to moral results. It is to the definition of these results, 
and their communication to our fellow-men, that our 
associate efforts should tend. Such being the case in 
general, a peculiar obligation rests upon us, as an Ame- 
rican society undertaking to apply the instructions of 
history to a people of recent political estabhshment, in a 
new country, under new institutions. This work is 
worthy of the highest wisdom; it demands the highest 
qualifications; yet it admits of subdivisions, some of 
which may be wrought by humble laborers; and with a 
due regard to its difficulties, there may be selected 'a por- 
tion of it suitable to the present occasion. The speaker 
may, by his choice, lose that kind of interest which is 
created by exhibitions of historical scenes which delight 
the fancy and enlist the sympathies of an audience in the 
vicissitudes of individual fortune. We may be unable to 
contemplate the unfolding of any of those dramatic crises 



8 

in the issues of which empires are involved, and to which 
grandeur is imparted by the accumuhited efforts of mil- 
lions of men. We may be deprived of those pictures 
which bring before us country, and costume, and daily 
life. But on this day of periodical commemoration, it 
seems fitting to prefer practical reflections which have a 
general bearing upon our plans of usefulness. In the 
lectures to be read before you during this winter, the 
elements of rhetorical interest now wanting may be more 
properly, and doubtless will be amply, supplied. It is 
proposed to offer to you a few thoughts upon the use of 

HISTORY IN THE ELEMENTARY EDUCATION OF OUR PEOPLE, PAR- 
TICULARLY IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS. 

This design may appear to open too wide a range for 
our present limits ; for what phase of human character, 
wdiat fliculty or susceptibility, will history not illustrate 
or modify? Of what varieties of adaptation does it not 
admit in the minor arrangements of scliolastic govern- 
ment? Yet we may lay aside the consideration of 
instruction upon the higher forms of colleges ; we need 
not pause upon professorships by which pupils are to be 
conducted to the more advanced stages of historical 
acquirement; we may look only to the very restricted 



boundaries of that education which is given to the main 
body of our people. In like manner, we may omit com- 
parison of our own schools with those of other conn- 
tries; and the distribution of books, the allotment of time, 
and any other parts of the mere framework of tuition. 
We may avoid intrusion into the administration of those 
gentlemen to whom we owe so great a debt for their 
zealous and successful exertions to improve the condition 
of public instruction in this city and county. A few pre- 
liminary remarks will indicate the topics which are 
deemed sufficiently general and important to serve the 
present purpose; and before exhibiting these to you, some 
truths of common acceptance may be suggested as proper 
qualifications of any opinion which we may form upon 
our subject. There will be no time for the employment 
of narratives in the way of example; but this restriction 
is of little moment, since your own recollection may be 
relied upon for such illustrations as may be needed to 
explain, or to confirm, the course of our joint reflections. 

I. It has become trite to say, that knowledge does not 
simply and necessarily influence action. There is a great 
mass of knowledge which has no immediate relation to 
conduct in the common affairs of life; and this is true 



10 

of historical, as well as of other kinds of learning. The 
influence of history upon adults is subject to grave quali- 
fications. Some of its examples are available only in an 
imperfect manner, even as guides to the understanding ; 
for the shifting of circumstances renders it often difficult, 
and in some cases impossible, to establish for ourselves a 
certain theory of cause and effect. Examples, moreover, 
are often received and used by us while we are affected 
by partisan habits and feelings, by private attachments, 
and by schemes for personal advancement ; and when 
they act upon the minds of individuals they more fre- 
quently influence opinions, than character, from which 
action chiefly springs. The conduct of men depends not 
upon detached facts or doctrines merely remembered, 
whether they have been learned early or late in life ; but 
upon habits of thought and feeling ; upon the association 
of ideas with the impulses which directly prompt to 
action. No school instruction can do more than establish 
such associations; none can perfect the knowledge, nor 
unalterably fix the habits of pupils. Hence we deduce 
a leading thought, that the objects for the attainment of 
which our instruction is planned, are the selection of 

THE ENDS OF CONDUCT; THE ADJUSTMENT OF THE RELATIVE 
RANK OF PRINCIPLES ; THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CERTAIN HA- 



11 

BITUAL CRITERIA; AND THE PROMOTING OF THAT DEVELOP- 
MENT AND ORDERLY EXERCISE OF EACH FACULTY, WHICH 
RESULT FROM JUDICIOUS DISCIPLINE. UllleSS WG purpose 

amusement or display, these must be the objects of 
instruction in history. 

The intimate relations of such a course of discipline to 
the destiny of a self-governing people, are most clearly 
seen when we have duly examined the nature of national 
institutions; which, to be of practical efficacy, must be 
national habits. They are forms of national activity ; 
and by this is meant the activity of individuals, which, 
though it be modified by social union, 3^et retains the 
fundamental distinctions of individual character. Proofs 
of the correctness of this explanation abound in every 
country, and have come down to us from every past age. 
From these, it is to be presumed, that you have already 
obtained satisfactory conclusions respecting the manner 
in which the character of nations qualifies the historical 
meaning of their institutions. 

Let it now be borne in mind that the time of attend- 
ance upon the common schools is very short; that in 
general only the rudiments of the most common kinds of 
learning can be imparted; and that the pupils have few 
social or domestic aids by which their academic training 



12 

can be promoted. Let it also be observed that, were 
the opportunities and the auxiliaries multiplied to an 
equality with those of the most fiivored student, we 
should in vain attempt to teach all history. " It is 
certainl}^ no affected humility," says the late indus- 
trious Professor of History, Dr. Arnold, ^' but the very 
simple truth, to acknowledge that, of many large and 
fruitful districts in the vast territory of modern his- 
tory, I possess only the most superficial knowledge; 
of some I am all but totally ignorant." Eighty 3'ears 
ago the learned Dr. Robertson found the collections 
of historical materials so vast that "the term of 
human life was too short for the stud}', or even the 
perusal of them." What, then, can be done during 
the longest academic period? What is possible during 
the brief term of public instruction? In fiict, a graduate 
of the best university does not carry with him from 
his collegiate studies an outline of the political expe- 
rience of all nations.; and even of the annals of his own 
country his knowledge is confined to a few civil or military 
events of striking importance, a few guiding dates, and 
a few sketches of biography. It is manifest that when we 
speak of teaching " history" to our youths, we can mean 
only the communication of a few very minute portions 



13 

selected from the whole body of historical learning. It 
is also manifest that the connection of these portions 
with one another, if anything like system be attempted, 
must be effected by some other means than the chain of 
actual events. Amongst these means it is worthy of 
notice, whether our respect for chronology does not lead 
us to assign to it a pre-eminence which, however justi- 
fiable on the great scale of scientific adjustment, may be 
injurious to the student in our common schools, whose 
opportunities are narrowly restricted. Mere convenience 
of memory requires an orderly arrangement of what is 
learned, and the comprehension of a historical subject 
demands a regard to the connection and sequence of 
events ; but the assignment of these to astronomical, or 
any other extrinsic methods of subdivision, is useful only 
in proportion as it subserves the two other purposes. If, 
therefore, we must choose between a perfect recollection 
of dates on the one hand, and a deep impression of 
ethical conclusions on the other, it cannot be doubted 
that the former must be yielded. This choice is more 
frequently urged upon us than we are aware, without 
special attention to the facts; and whenever presented, 
tlie chronological adjustment is subordinate. Take, for 
example, a student who can learn only one political 



14 

lesson, and who is familiarized with the true explanation 
of the catastrophe which closed the annals of republican 
Rome — of what import is it to him in what year of the 
Jewish computation, more than of the Julian or any 
other period, Lepidus joined Antony, or Octavius com- 
pleted the triumvirate? To him who can be taught only 
one practical lesson, how is it of consequence on what 
day of the almanac the men of our revolution concluded 
the more glorious compact which secured our republic, if. 
he knows the true meaning of that immortal league ? 
And when, more recently, woi'thy successors of those 
patriots, breaking away from their partisan assemblies, 
went up to the Capitol, not to conspire for a triumvirate, 
but to renew their oaths of fidelity, and in the presence 
of the world to sustain each other in maintaining that 
Union, so costly, so priceless — what signifies it how the 
Bureau of Longitudes or the National Observatory had 
determined the planetary aspects ? Whicli of us, while 
his pulse quickens at the recollection of what those men 
did, can now, recent as is the event, say on what day 
they laid their ofiering upon their country's altar ? No, 
truly ! our understandings and our hearts keep a time of 
their own, which is that of rational thoui^ht and emo- 
tion ; and these are not dependent upon an}" astronomical 



15 

series. Were it otherwise, what would become of all 
modern history, seeing that the very commencement of 
our era, as commonly noted, is falsely reckoned? What 
would become of the literary history of Greece, seeing 
that its noblest specimen is of uncertain age? What 
would become of the kingly annals of Rome, seeing that 
many of their most important events are not assignable 
to any unquestionable date? What should we think of 
students of all former ages, now that the " annus mundi" 
is exploded by physical archasology ? " It is not neces- 
sary then" (using, to repeat our idea, the words of a 
skilful historian already quoted) " it is not necessary to 
observe the order of time with a chronological accuracy ; 
it is of more importance to keep in view the mutual con- 
nection and dependence of events, and to show how the 
operation of one event or cause prepared the way for 
another, and augmented its influence." 

I have insisted upon this topic for the better introduc- 
tion of my main proposition, which is, that for the mass 

OF LEARNERS, SELECT PRACTICAL PRECEPTS, ILLUSTRATED BY 
HISTORICAL EXAMPLES, AND ENFORCED BY THE AIDS USED FOR 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONAL CHARACTER, SHOULD BE THE 
MEANS OF HISTORICAL INSTRUCTION IN OUR COMMON SCHOOLS. 

Whenever the length of the academic term, and the cir- 



16 

cumstances of the pupils, are such as to aftbrd time for 
acquiring a skeleton of dates and names for the conve- 
nience of future study, it is doubtless expedient to give 
such a framework ; but when the acquisition of this is 
effected only by a sacrifice of the higher instruction, it is 
scarcely a shadow of usefulness which we bestow : the 
substance is withheld by us. It will, of course, be under- 
stood by you, that no objection is here offered to any in- 
vention by which the acquisition of the chronology of 
history is facilitated. The more promj^t and easy w^e 
render the progress of any persons in relation to this 
branch, the greater will be the number of students who 
will make good advancement, without prejudice to their 
attainments in the more important particulars ; but we 
cannot expect this number to bear a large jDroportion to 
the whole population of the country. No mechanical or 
social arrangements hitherto shown to be feasible, could, 
even if aided by an equal division of property, keep the 
means of subsistence so far in advance of the increase of 
inhabitants, as to allow of a great addition to the period 
of study in the common schools ; and the question for the 
majority is therefore between two methods, one of which 
must be preferred to the other. 

It is to be conceded that the mode now recommended 



17 

for communicating information has a fragmentary aspect ; 
and it may, at first view, excite objections in the minds 
of persons who measure the success of instruction by the 
degree of famiharity with the systematic treatises of the 
schools. On the other hand, it must also be conceded 
that all human knowledge is fragmentary. The most 
complete pantology of our libraries is scarcely as the grain 
of sand upon the sea shore when compared with the uni- 
versal system of things. The text-books now in use in 
our schools are the merest scrap- work compared with any 
standard history for adults. Thus we see that the pro- 
priety of any method is dependent and contingent ; and 
that we are to be guided, not hy any barren artificial rela- 
tions of our subject, but by its reference to the practical 
end of education ; not by its place in tlie classifications of 
the learned, but by its connection with each life the 
direction of which we assume in our school discipline. 
For further confirmation, permit me to refer to your own 
minds as exemplifying, in this respect, the experience of 
all students of history. Throwing back a glance to the 
commencement of authentic annals, and thence looking 
at the main subdivisions of history, how few of the links 
in the great chain of connection are clearly within the 
grasp of your memory ! How your thoughts leap from 



18 

epoch to epoch, distinguishing here and there a crisis — an 
actor — a change ! Of all the minute details which are 
essential to a complete knowledge of the actual order of 
events, how small the proportion of those which enter 
into your reflections upon the fortunes of nations, or of 
individuals ! Yet you are persuaded that you have a useful 
knowledge of history ; that what is unknovv^n is not essen- 
tial to the practical application of what is known ; and 
you cannot be justly charged with undue confidence in 
this particular. Your experience is that of all men, 
whatever their attainments. Facts of history are 

GROUPED ABOUT CERTAIN PRINCIPLES, OR DOCTRINES ; AND ARE 
RECALLED BY THESE WHEN YOU WOULD GIVE TO THEM A 
PRACTICAL APPLICATION. 

The principles which we obtain from history for our 
own use, or for the enlightenment of younger persons, 
cannot all be novelties. The main doctrines, which lie 
at the basis of social morality, have been discussed during 
the entire period of historical record. The readers of 
Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Caesar, Cicero, 
Sallust, Livy, Seneca, Plutarch, Tacitus, find upon the 
pages of those ancient writers, many of the precepts which 
are taught in our own day ; and the very form of enun- 
ciation of some of them has undergone no change. The 



19 

sameness of the rudiments of human character, in all 
countries and ages, and the similarity of their manifesta- 
tion in like circumstances, render it possible to find in the 
most remote annals, examples applicable to the latest 
social movement. Hence the oratory of the roman senate 
is revived amongst our own conscript fathers ; and the 
political wisdom which instructed the assemblies at the 
Olympic games, or admonished the subjects of Vespasian, 
is repeated in pages which form the opinions of legislators 
of the present age. There have been fresh illustrations ; 
but of these, a large portion have rather added to the 
number of examples than to the variety of opinions. It 
is this unity of history which gives practical value to its 
examples. One age, or social movement, well understood, 
becomes the key to others ; and it is thus that we are en- 
abled to carry on our institutional processes, with a few- 
illustrations. Indeed, it is a prime lesson to inculcate, 
that there are truths which depend not upon forms of 
government, nor upon the outward trappings of power, 
but upon the substantial relationships of the actors ; truths 
which are discernible in presence of the robe and bible of 
Cromwell, as well as of the sacred oil of France, or the 
iron crown of Italy ; which may appear in the official 
acts of an american magistrate, as well as in the decrees 



20 

ex mero motu of the most unrestrained of despots; truths 
which are manifested by men in society, whether they be 
clothed in the ancient palKum, or toga, in the armor-at- 
all-points of the european middle ages, or in the feathered 
and trinketed garb of the Aztecs ; — truths, in short, which 
are of all times, and of all people. It is from such truths 
that we obtain the analogies which shape our opinions of 
local constitutions, and of their practical operation ; it is 
by such that we learn to judge independently of those 
casual and illogical associations of ideas which make 
the fortunes of demagogues, but which blind the mass of 
men to the real character of public measures, and to the 
real tendency of social usages. 

In the further prosecution of our subject, it may be 
observed that the method proposed to you has the advan- 
tage of being suited to all classes of learners, whatever 
the fortune, whatever the destined career in life. It is 
the mode in which the wisest proficient avails himself of 
his acquisitions ; and it has a natural fitness for the par- 
tially cultivated memories of the major part of the com- 
munity. It makes of history what it ought to be in the 
relation now under discussion, viz : an auxiliary to our 
moral and political lessons. Perhaps it may be thought 
to merge historical teaching in the function of a professor 



21 

of moral philosophy. Be it so ; for, if pupils of the class 
in question are to learn moral lessons, not merely dates 
and names, it cannot be material that we do not adhere 
to the old nominal distinction. 

A further advantage of the method now recommended 

is, that IT OFFERS PECULIAR FACILITIES FOR MAKING OUR 

INSTRUCTION PERMANENT, by incorporating it with the 
habitual associations of our youth. Any such historical 
generalization as is within the capacity of young persons, 
will be found to approximate very closely to their reason- 
ings and judgments upon the little affairs of their own 
community. They exercise the same intellectual facul- 
ties, the same passions and sentiments, which are em- 
ployed by adults; and the application of these, whether 
to the partition of an apple or of an empire — to the 
defence of a snow-fort at Brienne, or to that of Paris 
against allied armies — to the dictatorship of a school, or 
to that of a republic — is the activity of one nature, 
which man carries with him, in elements unchanged, 
from the cradle to the grave. To connect by resem- 
blances, or easy analogies, the greater displays of human 
character with those of school-life, is the surest mode of 
rendering our teaching both intelligible and lasting; and, 
with this end in view, we shall not be long in discovering 



22 

that skeletons of history are not the most useful instru- 
ments in a course of study necessarily brief. 

Another advantage of this method is, that it allows 

HISTORICAL INCIDENTS TO PRODUCE THEIR PROPER EFFECTS 
UPON THE SENTIMENTS, AT THE SEASON WHEN SUCH INFLU- 
ENCES ARE MOST OPERATIVE UPON INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER. 

Instead of a farrago of phrases which are painfully 
learned and soon forgotten, because destitute of relations 
to the ordinary mental employments of our pupils, we 
present to them complete scenes in which they feel a 
lively concern; personal adventures, not in the field 
merely, but in the more important contests of temptation 
with duty, of patriotism with private wishes, of the 
domestic affections with the motives offered by society at 
large. We engage at once their imagination and their 
curiosity; and, while we furnish examples of the man- 
ner in which their duty as citizens is to be performed, we 
bind these to their memory with chords of personal 
sympathy. 

It is impossible, in the short space of time allotted to 
this discourse, to advert to all the considerations by which 
the views of the speaker may be sustained. A conclud- 
ing reference, it is hoped, will suffice to connect the topics 
which have been mentioned with one another, and with 



23 

the evidence of actual experience. Those of you who 
have conversed upon public measures with men whose 
residence upon the frontier of settlements has deprived 
them of the advantages of early culture, have witnessed 
how^ their judgments of political events, and of the cha- 
racters of political leaders, are influenced by a few tradi- 
tions of colonial or revolutionary times. A principle is 
sustained by an anecdote; and their warmest national 
feelings are evinced in connection with personal incidents 
which they have, in early life, learned to associate with 
the names of some of our patriot-fathers. In your con- 
versations with men of high cultivation, in listening to 
the speeches of statesmen, in reading essays written by 
masters in the morality of history, you must have per- 
ceived the resemblance of their finished arguments to the 
rude processes of the frontier-man's mind. One of the 
former addresses you in systematic phrase, and cites au- 
thorities of classic renown; talks familiarly of Marathon 
and Hastings, of Thermopylae and "Waterloo, of the Am- 
phictyonic league, of the Italic war, of feudal establish- 
ments, of tribunes, of boroughs; the other utters, in 
simple colloquy, his firm belief, and quotes Washington, 
or Franklin, or General Green, or the most prominent of 
neighboring judges; and draws his stock of examples from 



24 

the traditions of his family or of his vicinage. Wide as 
seems the interval between the resources of each, there is 
no substantial difference between their methods ; the dis- 
tinctions are superficial or collateral. Look into the long 
series of political writers, and see how the same examples 
are repeated, as though stereotyped for the use of all 
ages. Their illustrations of political doctrines are few in 
number, and might all be thoroughly learned in less time 
than that in which one could master the half of any 
text-book of general history now in use in our public 
schools. Yet it is mainly for those examples, and the 
doctrines supported by them, that history is taught; 
it is in these that history is used for practical ends; 
and it is not an extravagance to say that to the great 
mass of mankind all the remainder of history is a 
nullity. 

If the opinions which have been expressed to you 
merit our reliance, they should affect the plans of the 
books which are written for our common schools, as well 
as the selection of what is orally communicated by our 
teachers. If the volumes now in use are to be retained, 
it may be permitted to ask for the addition of others 
which shall supply tlie kind of instruction needed for 



25 

such pupils as cannot receive a tuition sufficiently pro- 
longed for the mastery of what is now set down for 
them. If we concede the fitness of the method adopted 
for pupils who can attend upon a course of four years, 
and who are laying a foundation for future systematic 
study, it may still be allowable to ask that the teachers 
of unlettered students of a year's term may be supplied 
with manuals adapted to their more limited opportuni- 
ties; and that even for the former class of scholars there 
may be provided the means of impressing the moral 
lessons of history while they are committing to memory 
catalogues of dates and names. In our public college, 
the High School, by an arrangement most creditable to 
the administration, there are lectures upon our local his- 
tory and upon the public institutions of our city and 
county; which, with other historical lectures, afford op- 
portunity for much of that kind of teaching in favor of 
which your attention has been invoked. To the normal 
schools, however, recently commenced under the authority 
of the government of our State, we are to look for a 
general improvement in this particular; inasmuch as the 
success of historical teaching in the primary schools will 
be dependent upon the preparation which the teachers 
shall receive for oral instruction suited to the capaci- 



26 

ties and time of attendance of pupils upon the lower 
forms. 

II. Considering the manner in which we are to realize 
the general conclusions now before you, it is curious to 
observe how nearly the most enlarged views of the po- 
litical philosopher are connected with the earliest notions 
which we form of our domestic o,nd social relations; and 
how easy is the transition from the simplest fireside in- 
struction to the highest axioms of writers upon the theory 
of government. This remark will be exemplified in the 
suggestion of some of the topics which may be selected, 
according to the age and standing of pupils, for the 
classification of historical events. Thus, the scholastic 
doctrines respecting the "social compact" as a source of 
political obligation have practically no hold upon the 
general mind ; but the relations of human society to 
personal security, to the cultivation of the arts of civil- 
ized life, and to the upward progress of the race, are not 
only readily comprehended, but, in a greater or less 
degree depending upon the mental resources of indi- 
viduals, they affect the private reasoning and inclina- 
tions, and, by consequence, the public acts of the entire 
community. Thus, too, the advantages of order, of sub- 



27 

ordination, from the domestic circle to municipal or- 
ganizations, and the evils which are incident to human 
intercourse unrestrained by any operative general rules, 
can be easily rendered obvious to the uninstructed by 
familiar illustrations. The '^ nulla vis inter cives non 
contra remi^uhlicam" of the roman statesman, which, as 
uttered by him, has the air of profound wisdom, is an 
immediate consequence from the first principles of po- 
litical association; and it will be promptly assented to 
by every class of persons capable of understanding the 
nature' of civil government in its rudest forms, or of per- 
ceiving its analogies with paternal discipline. That must 
be an extraordinarily dull or obstinate boy, who cannot 
see, or will not acknowledge, the disorders that follow a 
usurpation of the master's seat, or a total disregard, by 
all the members of a family, of the regulations prescribed 
by its head. In this respect, the doctrine of civil obe- 
dience is not more complex, nor more difficult of appre- 
hension ; and the appropriate examples from history, 
whether drawn from the excesses of ancient, or of modern 
times, are not less apt nor intelligible than such as are 
derived from the family or the school. 

Again; a prominent topic both of historians and of ab- 
stract political writers, is the best mode of reconciling the 



28 

'necessity and the love of progress with a rational adhe- 
rence to a settled order of things ; in other words, how to 
render public institutions firm, without fettering improve- 
ment. The importance of this topic has been shown with 
unprecedented clearness during the last century ; and it 
is, at this moment, receiving illustration both in this 
country and in Europe. In France, the conflict between 
the sentiments, habits, and usages of the mass of the 
nation, and the prescriptions of a constitution devised 
by a small party, and established by a central power not 
in complete harmony with the body of the people, affords 
a plain example of one difficult}'. Within a few years, 
Pennsylvania and several other large states of America, 
have materially altered their framework of government. 
During the last year, Pennsylvania has again changed a 
fundamental article affecting one of the main departments 
of sovereignty, viz : that of the judiciary. In what degree 
these alterations are to be attributed to a rational judg- 
ment upon the experience of those states since the war 
of independence, and in what degree to the management 
of popular leaders, and to the undue influence of favorite 
ideas misapplied for sectional purposes, or for plans of 
party aggrandisement ; or to a narrow estimate of parti- 
cular inconveniences ; or to that readiness for change so 



29 

currently ascribed to popular governments, will be de- 
cided by each one of us according to the extent of his 
political scope and the clearness of his perception. The 
aspect in which they are available in the present connec- 
tion, is that by which we are admonished of their inti- 
mate dependence upon the habits of thought and feeling 
prevalent in the community. The struggle between the 
partisans of change and the adherents of an established 
social order, is as old as the history of political convul- 
sions ; and is too familiar to you to require examples on 
this occasion. What is chiefly to our purpose, is to 
remark that, in all of the recorded cases, there have been 
excesses both of demand and resistance ; that the action of 
the majority on either side, has been prompted more by 
particular evils alleged, or really felt, than by any con- 
sistent general estimate of the effects of existing institu- 
tions; and that the acrimonious character of the contest 
has been often due rather to the stimulants of partisan- 
ship, than to the weight of any particular grievance. 
To use the phraseology of Junius, himself a noted adept 
in partisan amplification, " the measures have been fre- 
quently of that doubtful kind in which the virulent 
exaggerations of party must be employed to rouse and 
engage the passions of the people." It may be assumed 



30 

that political changes are reducible to two general kinds, 
viz: that which results directly and quietly from the 
education of the people; and that which is brought about 
by convulsions of the body politic. In this country, 
where there is no contest between orders of men, some of 
whom enjoy ancient prerogative or recently usurped pri- 
vileges, and others who are without either; but where, 
on the contrary, all controversies are amongst the people 
themselves, respecting the mode in which, and the per- 
sons by whom, their own undisputed sovereignty shall 
be exercised, the questions raised must differ widely both 
in form and in effect from many of those which have 
been agitated in the other hemisphere. Yet it is remark- 
able that the furor of popular excitement has not 
been diminished in proportion as democracy has been 
approached. When we read of mobs of the ancient world, 
who broke open senators' houses, and piled and fired 
their furniture in the forum; who took forcible possession 
of the rostra, and who disturbed or suspended the co7nitia 
by outcry or violence ; who even pressed upon the Senate 
so that the knights and others guarded the deliberations 
with drawn swords; wlio fired temples erected by ob- 
noxious citizens, and who nullified legislative decrees 
constitutionally enacted; we might attribute these dis- 



31 

orders to the impatience of oppressed subjects, or to the 
licentiousness of mercenary adherents of profligate men 
striving for power and for the control of the public trea- 
sury. But when we turn to this republic, so wisely 
organized, so liberal in its institutions, so jealously 
restricted in favor of popular rights, so rich in the means 
of physical prosperity; this republic, in which no man 
attains to power except upon the uncontrolled votes of 
free electors; and even here, behold the same riotous 
excesses, the same armed intrusions upon the elective 
franchise; ballot-boxes forcibly broken open, and plun- 
dered, or abstracted, or fraudulently filled with spurious 
votes ; contests with bludgeons and more deadly weapons ; 
our citizens slaughtering each other in the open streets, 
and lighting the darkness of night by the flames of 
churches fired by their incendiary torches; and finall}', 
when we see that these outrages, which charity might 
have attributed to a passing phrensy, are succeeded by 
deliberate attempts to nullify the laws of the land — 
surely we have reason to look further than the subjects 
of controversy to discover the true sources of political 
mischiefs so dangerous to the commonwealth. Where 
can we find these, if not in those germs of individual 
character for the proper culture of which we design our 



32 

methods of education? Thus from the broad arena of 
civil society we return to the narrow field of youthful 
activity; and are again admonished to use the lessons of 
national experience in the institution of pupils in our 
common schools. The nature of human opinion, and the 
history of parties T\^hether in church or state, which 
explain each other to the mind of the practised inquirer, 
are found to have some of their earliest illustrations in 
those exhibitions of prejudice and passion which disturb 
our little communities of scholars. To none of these 
will it be impossible, or even difficult, to teach the dan- 
gers of precipitancy or of faction, without unduly bias- 
ing them for or against any of the local political theories; 
and therefore, while, as first suggested, we impress upon 
them the value of social order, we may form them to 
such intellectual and moral habits as tend to prevent its 
rash disturbance. To these, much more than to any 
appeals to their understanding in maturer years, must 
we look for the maintenance and rational development 
of our peculiar government; and for the security of 
progress without exposure to the evils of political 
fanaticism. 

With this observation of the origin of some of our 
most danj^erous social mischiefs, and of the stage at which 



33 

their repression is most easy, there is opened to us a view 
of wider range, which presents to us the means of tracing 
principles of higher importance than those which affect 
only a single state. The careful reader of history fails 
not to notice the development of a grand idea, which, 
although expressed from time to time in the formularies 
of the better religious systems, and delivered, also, amongst 
the more refined precepts of philosophical schools, appears, 
nevertheless, to have made its way among the masses of 
mankind, by the same slow progress by which other truths 
respecting their social relations have advanced to their 
actual degree of prevalence. The fraternity of the 
RACE, that idea so interesting in moral history, so funda- 
mental to all rational theories of social connection and 
intercourse, is now a^Dproaching the place which it is ulti- 
mately to hold in the councils of nations as well as in the 
minor arrangements of civil communities. As your minds 
range from the period when to be a stranger was to be an 
enemy, to our own day, when the world sends to the 
british isles tokens of peace and good-will, and useful 
emulation ; when even the remonstrances of a conven- 
tion of private volunteers assembled in a german city, 
in favor of universal peace, are received and respect- 
fully answered by belligerent courts— from the period 



34 

when distress invited hostility, and war, to use the 
phraseology of the times, " made even sacred things pro- 
fane," to our own day, when the famine of one people is 
relieved by fleets from those of another hemisphere, bear- 
ing gifts of food and kind words of sympathy, and war, 
now become the " dire necessity" of nations, respects the 
domicils, not only of the gods, but of unarmed citizens — 
from the period when intestine commotion was the occa- 
sion only for foreign aggression and conquest, to our own 
day, when a struggle for liberty arouses the sympathies 
of millions of freemen in other climes, and the cruelty of 
the minions of despotic power is avenged by communities 
having no knowledge of the oppressed, but that of their 
misfortunes — through these, and man^^ other like changes, 
what evidences throng before you that the idea of human 
brotherhood is indeed asserting its rightful claim upon 
human beings. Shall it be left to the adverse influences 
which have so long retarded its complete sway over civil 
society ? Kather teach this to our youth, if all else be 
unlearned. With this, all progress is that of concord and 
reciprocal benefits; without it, the state of man must 
truly be what it is represented by some metaphysical 
speculators — a state of war. How easily may we connect 
the experience of our pupils upon this subject with that of 



35 

mankind at large; what abundance of examples have we, 
by which to enforce our doctrine ! How different the fruit 
from that yielded by those " bloody instructions — plaguing 
the inventors/' which made the young of two neighboring 
nations of Europe regard each other as natural enemies ; 
or those which sent fire and sword under the alleged sanc- 
tion of Heaven, to destroy a people of Asia, whose peace- 
ful messenger, Ahmin Bey, is now amongst us, to gather 
instruction, and to plant the tree of national amity. 
Within the limits of our own state, in our commerce with 
foreign communities, what softening of manners, what re- 
fining of justice must be our reward ! This principle will 
richly repay us for whatever pains we take to impress it 
upon our future citizens. It is of incalculably greater 
worth than all the skeleton histories ever compiled. 

I fear to exhaust your patience by dwelling too long 
upon the topics suited to that mode of instruction which 
has been proposed to you. Yet, without some notice of 
them, it is not easy to convey an adequate notion of the 
facilities thus offered for moulding the elements of national 
thought and sentiment. Did time permit, we might see 
how the true conception of the rights and dignity of a 
citizen is connected with that general view of his relation- 
ships which has just been mentioned ; how the earliest 



36 

notions of liberty and of justice correspond with the 
wisest deductions of riper ^^ears ; and how those spurious 
claims of equality, which disregard the prime distinctions 
established by original nature, and by the peculiar in- 
lluences attendant upon each mdividual, spring from the 
untrained passions and the ignorance of the young. We 
might observe where private morality separates from that 
of public station, and thus find how we are urged by 
every regard for the consistency and safety of our public 
code, to interpose before the setting of the judgment, as 
well as of habit, shall have made our subjects indifferent 
to the character of their officials, and of the acts sanctioned 
b}' themselves in the persons of their representatives. 
While the examples of history are collected to enforce 
these considerations, we may in like manner teach the 
value of that reverence for the authority of government 
which respects even the forms of its exercise. Need I 
remind you of the prevailing disrespect towards public 
ofiicers, of the intrusion of unqualified men into high 
stations, of the turbulent struggles of intriguers and dema- 
gogues, not only in the primary assemblies of the people, 
but in the very senate house — in short, of the want of 
that dignity which l^efits the high functions of govern- 
ment. You know well that, while vicious principles and 



37 

depraved associations are not a certain bar even to the 
judicial seat in any country, how manners are deteriorated, 
and the most sacred interests become the sport of the 
unprincipled. In the 3^oung mind, no false estimate of 
party obligation, no contempt for the elements of morality, 
has obscured the right perception of things. A few ex- 
amples from the book of history may at once confirm the 
uncorrupted judgment, and become fixed by association 
with the most permanent interior motives and guides of 
conduct. 

In what other way will you insure a rational love of 
country? It is not enough to love the valley or the city 
in which we were born or nurtured; nor, as has been 
said, to cling to our countrymen with the instinct which 
binds even dogs of the same kennel, or wolves of the 
same pack, against strangers of their species. It is not 
enough to feel that, in ignorance of reasons, we are pre- 
pared to face our country's foe " right or wrong." How- 
ever natural, or amiable, or respectable may be a senti- 
ment of preference, especially if resting upon the dear 
remembrances of childhood and of the home of our 
fathers, there remains to be given a lesson, the influence 
of which is to be felt when no thought of early ties shall 
mingle with our reflections and purposes. There is a 



38 

patriotism of character to be established which shall 
enable us to act as becomes enlightened citizens. For 
this, too, history gives a store of incidents fitted both to 
move and to instruct; and, thanks to the improved 
spirit of our age, we have learned better to discriminate 
amongst those incidents. There would, indeed, be little 
hope of a boy who could hear without emotion a recital 
of the simple story of Codrus, of the Horatii, of Curtius, 
or of Leonidas ; but there are lessons more touching and 
useful than these — lessons not merely of bravery and 
military pride, but of long and patient endurance ; of 
fortitude sustained only by moral principle ; of devotion 
through years without hope; of perseverance through 
every disaster; of the slow sacrifice of every comfort, 
and of every tie save that which bound the heart to its 
duty ; of resistance to every temptation, when the strug- 
gler was apparently to be uncrowned by fame. There 
are lessons which show that most difficult of achieve- 
ments, the conquest of the passions for the good of one's 
country. Would that this had more frequent illustration 
in our own day ! To exhibit these pictures of greatness 
to juvenile minds, to spur them to resolves which con- 
template not the slaughtering prowess of the battle-field, 
but the security and prosperity of the commonwealth. 



39 

and the happiness of mankind, is surely not less deserv- 
ing of our care than to compel them to the rehearsal of 
chronological tables ; of events, the moral significance of 
which is unfelt ; of names which wake no chord of love 
or of emulation. 

The monuments of the illustrious dead, and of those 
transactions which have signalized the epochs of national 
fortune — with what power do these speak to the hearts 
of the young ! If the orators of Athens, addressing 
their countrymen from the pulpit which faced the Acro- 
polis, derived superior energy and pathos from the monu- 
ments of their country which they there confronted — if 
even a Demosthenes and a Pericles owed a measure of 
their rhetorical fame to the associations of their hearers 
with surrounding memorials of athenian glory, what 
may we not effect upon our youth when we speak to 
them from the midst of a republic whose very institu- 
tions are monuments such as no Greek of the ancient 
time could boast ? — institutions which, though the results 
of ages of preparation, and many convulsions, and the 
shedding of rivers of blood, are so near in their natural 
simplicity to the first impulses of civilized humanity, 
that they may be explained to, and loved by, the boys 
in our common schools. More than once since the period 



40 

of our revolutionary struggle has been seen the control 
which national relics can have over the minds of men in 
the stormiest controversies. Within the year now pass- 
ing, who of us has not felt a portion of their influence? 
By such aids, and not by abstractions, may we hope to 
attach the hearts of our youth to their country. 

We might, for further illustration, have surveyed the 
consequences of that feeling, akin to patriotism, which 
urges us to seek what we generalize as national glory. 
To what riotous excesses has this prompted the people of 
former times ! Even to this hour, where is the evidence 
that the true glory of nations has been both understood 
and steadily pursued by any society of men ? What 
efforts have been wasted in military campaigns ! what 
miseries have been inflicted, in mass and in detail, upon 
our species! what lust of empire, what jealousies and 
diplomatic frauds have been sanctioned ! Could we suc- 
ceed in imprinting indelibly upon the minds of our 
scholars a single truth — that truth which was announced 
by one of the ablest of modern historians when he said 
that " few of the wars in which men have engaged, have 
been justifiable wars;" or that other truth recently pro- 
claimed by one of the foremost of our own statesmen, 
who never held back from the support of his government 



41 

in her strifes with foreign states, viz : that " the end of 
war is never seen in the beginning of it, and that few 
wars have terminated in the accomplishment of the 
objects for which they were commenced" — how much 
should we have done towards the prevention of that 
popular folly which aims to set up the trophies of great- 
ness only upon fields of blood ! Could we teach in due 
season that national, as well as individual life, is " earn- 
est ;" that there is a solemn vocation of the families of 
men ; that there may be rational confidence in a high 
destiny of our race ; and that to the consummation of 
this each nation owes a contribution of moral results; 
that the true glory of any people is to be measured by 
what it has accomplished toward the crowning of this 
work — then, and then only, should we have given to our 
scholars due preparation for their entrance into social 
responsibilities. This imposing lesson may be conveyed 
in a few narratives of history; it harmonizes with the 
first reflections of the young, and with the unalloyed 
sentiments with which they first look upon the world. 
Opposed, it may be, in later years by the cross influences 
of unperfected society, and by the passions, which fre- 
quently confound all ethical instruction ; yet, if a false 
notion can have power over the general will, so that 



42 

every private interest yields to its urgency, surely we 
must be gainers if we teach the truth, sustained as this 
is by natural relationships with both the thoughts and 
feelino-s of men. 

These, with kindred topics, might occupy our atten- 
tion more at large, were we unrestricted in our view 
of the advantages which are likely to attend upon 
the right use of history in the education of our 
people. To us, these reflections appeal with peculiar 
force. Do we consider sufhciently to what end^ other 
than the gratification of curiosity, we have consecrated 
our labors? While we seek to gather materials of his- 
tory for the use of future generations, are we content to 
leave the accumulations of our predecessors to moulder 
in neglected depositories? Have we diligently inquired 
where and how the rich treasures of historical instruction 
can be most profitably and justly bestowed? Has our 
acquaintance with the experience of civil communities 
made us solicitous in relation to the discipline of those 
who are to be the custodians of the republic when we 
and our contemporaries shall have passed away? Are 
our belief, and our trust, and our exertions, those of men 
who honestly endeavor to use, for the perfection of 



43 

human society, the lessons of recorded time? Our minds 
should have heen prepared — I trust that they are so — to 
contemplate with confidence the unfolding of those con- 
sequences which the wise and good of all ages have pre- 
dicted as the ultimate fortune of our race. We should 
have become able, through the mists and vapors of un- 
finished history, to discern the approach of that dawn 
which is to usher in the perfect day. Even in the midst 
of the convulsions which have agitated the social world, 
and which are yet unsubdued, to see the promise of 
future political advancement; to regard them, as we 
regard the throes of the earth itself in the dim past, as 
preparations for coming eras of tranquillity and productive- 
ness ; to look upon the broken members of empires as we 
look upon the upheaved and disjointed strata, as the efiects 
of sure though violent means by which the surface was 
to be fitted for the peaceful residence of rational beings. 
With such a confidence, inspired and confirmed by our 
studies of history, no temporary recession of the wave of 
progress, no taunts of the cold and faithless observer, no 
sneers of men rendered suspicious by participation in 
partisan intrigues, or in acts of government evilly de- 
vised, will have power to change our opinion of human 
destiny, or of the means b^' which it is to be accelerated. 



44 

We know that in health, charity, peace, forbearance, 
intellectual attainments, and gocial order, the condition 
of men in civilized communities is in advance of that of 
any former period; and this knowledge shall sustain our 
hope. Honor be to all, from the cabinets of state, and 
the halls of legislation, to the humble school-house of the 
frontier, who shall have part in hastening the consum- 
mation ! 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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